The Ghosts of Tullybrae House (19 page)

Emmie sat back in her chair and folded her hands in her lap. She contemplated the woman, chewing on her lip as she thought. “Okay. Well, the cameras aren’t rolling right now. Have you come to tell me what you were going to say?”

“Only if you’re okay with it, sweetheart. If you’re not comfortable, I can walk away and we can leave it at that.”

The fact that the medium was giving her a choice took Emmie aback. She took a minute to absorb the offer, to think about what she wanted. It surprised her, but she found that she actually
did
want to hear what the woman had to say. The Highlander certainly did. Or he knew what the woman was going to say and wanted Emmie to hear it.

“I’ll hear it,” she said evenly.

“Oh, good,” Carol breathed. “Because ever since I picked up on it, it’s been getting louder and louder. You are aware, then, of the young man that’s been hovering around you?” When Emmie blanched, Carol concluded, “I see. Yes, you are.”

“Can I ask—why does he hand aground? Why is he so interested in me?”

The woman looked at her oddly. After a moment, she spoke, evading Emmie’s question. “You’re an old soul. Did you know that? People like to use that expression far too often, but they’re rarer than you’d think, those old souls. You’re one of them.”

“What does that mean?”

She shrugged. “Oh, nothing. Most of the time. But I wanted to tell you—this person,” she gestured up and down at Emmie herself, “this is not you. It’s not going to change anything. You will become what you’re meant to become, no matter how hard you try to be something else.”

Emmie’s brows drew together, somewhere between confused and defensive. “And what does
that
mean?”

Carol shook her head, undeterred by her reaction. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I don’t always know. It’s just the impression I get. Anyway, back to what I picked up on earlier. The young man, he’s hanging around you for a reason. I think you’ve already worked out that he wants something from you, but you don’t know what it is.”

“Do you know?”

“I don’t. But I can say that, whatever it is, it is in your power to give him. I’m getting that very strongly. You
can
do what he wants you to.”

Emmie’s voice was small. “Do I
have
to?”

“Of course not. No one has to do anything. It is also within your power to choose not to, always.”

Finished with delivering her message, Carol smiled encouragingly. Then she stood, and started towards the door. As she was leaving, Emmie called out.

“Wait.”

She stopped and turned back, waiting patiently as Emmie grappled with the right words.

“I feel like… I don’t know, like he’s protecting me. Or watching out for me. Like he knows something about what’s dangerous—or who’s dangerous—that I don’t. Does he think… I mean, is Dean somehow dangerous, or a threat? Or he’s not good for me or something?”

For several seconds, Carol stared at her, confused. Then she broke into a laugh.

“Oh, dear me no, sweet child. He’s
jealous
. How have you not figured it out? Your Highlander is absolutely smitten.”

Emmie nearly fell out of her chair. “Smitten?”

“Mmm hmm,” Carol nodded emphatically. “Head over heels, and not shy about it. And by the way, he wishes you would stop thinking of him as ‘Highlander.’ He’s telling me quite clearly that he gave you his name for a reason.”

CAEL. HIS NAME
was Cael. And he
wanted
her to know his name.

He was real. She was not imagining him, wasn’t going mad. Which, surprisingly, made the whole thing all the more frightening.

A ghost. A dead person. He had… what? The hots for her? A crush on her? Somehow, those terms seemed too dismissive, too juvenile.

Emmie had been shocked when Carol told her. But it was not because she hadn’t know. She had known—on some level that her conscious mind preferred to ignore—that his feelings for her were deeper than the platonic interest of one sentient being in another. The shock came from having it confirmed by an outsider, by someone who did not belong to the inner, private world which she’d thought, until then, was the only place in which Cael was real.

With that confirmation, the subconscious narrative which she’d constructed for herself to validate his existence was pitched sharply into the forefront of her brain, made all the more real because it was real to someone else, too.

Now it was all obvious to her. Of
course
his feelings were deeper. When he watched over her at night, when he followed her around the house. When he wanted her to feel the things he felt and see the things he saw—

Even worse was the fact that her conscious mind was forced to consider her own feelings for him. To admit that those feelings… were reciprocated.

She had feelings for the Highlander. For Cael.
That
scared the hell out of her most of all.

He was dead. How could one have feelings for one who was dead? What did that say about her, about her state of mind? About her
stability
of mind? If she thought she was going mad before, now madness seemed the better option. At least when one was crazy, it was all in one’s mind.

No, no. She, Emmie, had to do one better than crazy. She was falling apart over something real, something that frightened her and drew her in at the same time. It tightened its grip on her, squeezing her more and more each day, and yet it wasn’t enough to cause her to turn away.

This was what had happened to her mother. Emmie
was
destined to end up just like her after all.

Cael seemed to recognize that Emmie’s anxiety had reached new heights. Unless she was imagining it, his hovering took on a possessive quality. He probably felt the anxiety rolling off her like heat from a convection oven. She could not pretend that she didn’t know why he was protective of her, nor could she pretend that she wasn’t aware of how he felt about her. It was all out in the open. They were looking at each other now with no pretense.

She knew. And he knew she knew.

She wandered about the house aimlessly, arms wrapped tightly around herself, unable to shut Cael out. Unwilling to shut him out.

The second day of filming, the camera crew went about setting up their equipment for the night’s “ghost watch,” snatching covert glances at the waif that drifted from room to room, pale and drawn. When she was out of ear shot, they tossed one another snide comments.

“She all there?” quipped the sound guy to the electrician outside the dining room.

“Does it matter? Admit it, mate: you’d do her even if she wasn’t.”

This uncouth comment was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. Mrs. Lamb’s hackles rose so high that Lamb was worried his mother would topple the ladder on which the electrician stood.

“That’s it! It’s got to be tonight,” the woman declared later that afternoon.

Lamb, who was getting one last polish of the drawing room furniture in before filming would commence, tipped his chin in the general direction of her voice.

“What about the cameras? Is it the wisest idea with all this fancy gear in the house? It’s here to catch evidence of you and your spooky friends, you know.”

“Do you have a better idea?”

Lamb pursed his lips, then shook his head. “No’ offhand. I’ll defer to your judgement, then. But whatever you do, be subtle.”

Mrs. Lamb’s image flickered in the corner, just briefly. Her small, pert nose was raised, and she was smoothing down her skirts with both hands.

“I’m always subtle,” she sniffed, and disappeared again. “Besides, I spoke to the countess, and she agrees ’tis high time we took matters into our own hands. Since you’ve clearly shown yourself incapable of making things better for her on your end.”

“And how was I supposed to do that?” Lamb paused in his vigorous polishing. “Besides, if that Highlander is as persistent as you seem to think, what makes you think you can convince him to leave her alone?”

“Convince
him
?” Mrs. Lamb snorted. “No, my dear lad. It’s
her
we’re going to have a chat with.”

“Emmie? You’re going to talk to Emmie herself?”

“Indeed I am. We are, the countess and I. Together.”

“Lamb gave a long-suffering sigh, and continued his polishing. “Heaven help the lass if you start talking to
her
, too. You’ve driven
me
mad enough as it is.”

It was close
to midnight. The farce which Haunted Britain called a ghost hunt had been going on for three hours. The process was a curious mix of start-and-stop filming that, once completed, would be edited into a smooth fifteen minute segment—complete with room for commercial breaks. On camera, the host and her hunting crew were the picture of teamwork, professionalism, and general, all-round paranormal investigative enthusiasm. Off camera… not so much.

Tensions, it would appear, were running high behind the scenes. Elena Seaton-Downs and co-hunter Richard Mowbry were in a snit with each other over who got more on-camera time (apparently Mr. Mowbry had actual paranormal investigative training, and felt deserving of a greater amount of on-screen recognition; Ms. Seaton-Downs objected for obvious reasons). The director, Greg, was in a snit with BBC Two over a recent budget cut, and was taking it out on the station’s on-set representative. And much to the surprise of the entire crew, Camera Man A was in a snit with the show’s dedicated historian, Louise Pembroke, because they’d slept together before Louise admitted to Camera Man A that she was married, and refused to leave her husband for him.

It was almost comical to see the team going from squabbling and bickering children one minute, to close-knit, career-minded colleagues as soon as someone called, “Aaaaannnnd… Action!”

A far cry from the professional academics on the Edinburgh dig crew. A testament to the toxic nature of egos when they got too big for one another.

Emmie listened to the goings on from her seated position at the top of the grand staircase. The house was completely dark, save for whatever intermittent moonlight came through the windows when the rolling clouds permitted it. She was given the all-clear by the director to sit there if she wanted. No cameras had been rigged for this angle, but she had been warned that if she were there when one of the investigators walked by, she risked being picked up on a hand-held. If that happened, the producers would blur her face in editing, but the show could not guarantee they would be able to cut her out completely.

In the drawing room, Elena Seaton-Downs was with Richard Mowbry. They’d had the hand-held cameras on for the last half hour, and had been playing nice all that time.

Since filming had started, the petite, Bambi-eyed host of Haunted Britain was as nerve-gratingly on-form as she was in the other episodes Emmie had seen. The woman expressed an expertly rehearsed amount of fear and excitement at every little sound. Emmie was surprised, however, by how many long gaps there were between each gasp and exclamation of “What was that?” Another product of the editing phase of production, she supposed.

So far, Elena’s jumping and gasping had been at the normal sounds of the house settling down for the night. At one point she shushed the others and whispered, “Do you hear that? Footsteps.” The whole crew fell silent, and listened anxiously to the sound of Lamb climbing the servants’ stairs on his way to bed.

“Right,” she said now to her co-host. “That’s enough of that. Richard, why don’t you and I go into the library and meet up with Brent and Louise. I’ll take Brent down to the kitchen, see if we can’t catch more, and maybe you can take Louise up to the attics.”

“Eh, why don’t you take Louise up to the attics?” Richard shot back. “There are more cameras downstairs, and you know it.”

“You’ll go where I tell you, or you can find a new show.”

“Cut it out, Elena,” sighed Greg from somewhere nearby.

Emmie watched the two investigators stalk out of the parlour—Elena first with chin high—catching Richard’s mumbled “Bitch!” as he followed behind.

Soon they were gone, and the house settled back into silence. It was much better that way, she thought. These people didn’t belong here. The framed and mounted faces of Tullybrae’s lords and ladies agreed. Their painted expressions, slight smiles captured by swirls of cracking oil paint, looked relieved to have been left alone at last.

Fatigue had been creeping over Emmie within the last hour, and was now putting up a valiant fight to overpower her.

“Bedtime,” she whispered, knowing that Cael would hear—though she didn’t need to say it for his benefit. He would follow her regardless. In fact, she was aware that talking to him was the last thing she should be doing. Encouraging not only him, but herself in this madness. It was only serving to perpetuate the very cause of her distress.

Yet the desire to acknowledge him, to reach out to him as he was reaching out to her was compelling. Like a scab that she knew she should leave alone but just couldn’t. No, not a scab. A scab was an annoyance, something ugly and mean and little. This was worse than a scab, more dangerous. It was like an addiction.

Even as this knowledge made her blood run cold, an unbidden thrill ran up her spine. It was a thrill that seemed to have come from Cael—was he pleased to have been acknowledged?

Disturbed by the dichotomy that was warring inside of her, Emmie rose from the top step, and began down the second floor corridor to the servants’ stairs.

A sound from behind made her stop.

It was a little girl’s giggle. The same giggle that had been plaguing her since she arrived at Tullybrae. Only this time it was close. Very close.

“Hello?” Emmie’s voice came out pathetically meek. She winced, and tried again. “Clara? Is that you? Are you trying to get my attention?”

The giggle came again, louder this time. The sound was followed by the creaking of floorboards from further down the hall.

Her synapses were firing on all cylinders. Glancing once behind her to make sure no errant camera had found its way upstairs, Emmie followed the sound down the corridor. A dash of white disappeared in a flutter around the corner at the far end.

“Wait,” Emmie called. “Clara, wait.”

She jogged down the hall, past to door to the servants’ stairs, all the way to the end where the corridor made an L turn into a smaller section of the house.

When she rounded the L, Emmie blinked in surprise. At the end of the smaller hallway, the door to the last room on the right stood open. Light was coming from within.

Her first thought was that Haunted Britain’s technicians had rigged a camera in this room, and had forgotten to turn the lights off. They’d opened many rooms that were usually closed, letting out a few decades’ worth of dust in the process. But they’d also mapped out the locations of the mounted cameras, and this room hadn’t been one of them. Plus, Emmie couldn’t conceive that professionals would forget to turn the lights off. With them on, the night-vision cameras would be useless.